Complete website redesign - what to look for
-
We are having our website redesigned by an SEO company to increase CTR and for a better user experience and I was wondering what to look for and what key questions to ask. At the moment we rank very well for a few strong keywords and I m afraid that by rewriting the content and changing the website layout we might put at risk some of the rankings even for a brief period of time. This company seems to be very good so I need to know what to ask them to make sure everything goes according to plan.
Your thoughts are appreciated.
-
Are they doing some of the things we mention in our 4 D process? If not, ask them why.
-
Echo,
"You hope to increase CTR." Is this if the search engines? If so you need to change your meta descriptions and meta titles, this might be able to be done without creating a completely new website.
As for a few questions here you go:
- What's their experience building websites?
- What does the website look like on mobile platforms(Is it responsive)?
- What will be the tree structure of the website?
- How easily can I change/edit content and meta information?
- Will the images be optimized(*something often overlooked)?
- Has their been a sitemap created?
Those are a few questions that come to mind right off the bat.
-
Ask them for case studies or successes they have in similar situations. I would ask if the can give you print outs of some of their organic improvements straight form google analytics.
If you are redoing the whole website for better ctr, that makes no sense. your CTR from organic traffic will mostly be determined by your meta descriptions and how well they are written. Remember any words in your meta desc will show bolded when they show up in the serps.
Also your ranking position will have a lot to do with you ctr.
As far as user experience yes a redesign may benefit you conversion rate or your average order value. The only possible way a new web design could improve click through rate is if many of your users are using google preview to see your site before clicking and even then it would have to be pretty bad to deter them from clicking based on a small preview.
Are you sure they are not trying to increase relevance for +click through rates for ppc?
Overall I understand why you are wary. You site seems pretty fine to me and if your already ranking the only thing they should be changing is meta descriptions for a better click through rate, or at least that's the best starting point.
And redesigning the whole website you can best believe their is a possibility of losing some rankings temporarily or even long term. You may also improve but I would really just ask them to start with the meta descriptions which should be written as keyword focused ad-copy.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to fix canonicalization so Google shows our company's website and not LinkedIn
I work for a company that builds and manages apartments. I would like to know how we can fix canonicalization. You see, we have been posting our company's blog articles not only on our company's website, but also on LinkedIn. When people search for one of our articles, Google is displaying the article for LinkedIn. Except, that's not what we want. I'd prefer for Google to display our company's website, to drive more traffic to our website and not LinkedIn. For instance I just Googled the title to one of our company's blog article "Great Leadership is about Influence not Authority." The first thing to show up was a link to see the article on LinkedIn. There was nothing referring to our company's website. Here is a link to the LinkedIn account where we have been posting the blogs: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/great-leadership-influence-authority-mike-kaeding/ Here is a link to the same article, but on our company's website: https://www.norhart.com/blog/2018/08/08/great-leadership-is-about-influence-not-authority/ Why is Google showing the article for Linkedin and not our Company's website? Might LinkedIn have canonicalization over Google? If so, how might we be able to reverse this and drive people to our company's blog instead. Any ideas I'd greatly appreciate it! Thanks.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | mikleing0 -
Shopify websites. I've been asked to do some SEO work for a client.
They have a Shopify site. It's been running a year without getting really any listings. Anyone else had this problem? Should we just build them a new website? Or do shopify site have a poor record of listing highly.Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | BraveThinking0 -
Show Unique User Goal Completions in Analytics Instead of Totals
Hello Everyone, Currently within Google Analytics, I have a mostly unfiltered view and several goals setup. One of my goals is tracking the download of an eBook (setup to track visits to the 'success' page of the download). At the moment (as I understand it), that tracks "TOTAL" goal completions. So, if the same user/person downloads the eBook twice, I will see 2 goal completions. What I'm trying to figure out is how to generate a report or view or something that tells me how many "unique" users have downloaded the eBook. Is this possible to do? And, can I do it using past data or do I have to setup a new filter that would only track unique users going forward? Thanks in advance.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Elite-Rob0 -
Google Adwords Offered to Redesign My Website & A/B Test... Thoughts?
I received a call from the Google Adwords team today offering to redesign major pages of my website & A/B test their design against mine. The rep said that this is not a standard service they offer and that we had been "selected". Despite it's overt marketing overtones, I would hate to pass by the opportunity to apply Google's conversion insight to my site. Has anyone experienced this before? Good experience? Bad experience?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Glathrop1 -
Where I can place a banner/message in my site telling I have a new website?
Where I should place a banner or a message in my old site to tell user that I have a new website? Thanks in advance!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | esiow20130 -
Site Redesign - 2 Target Audiences?
Hey everyone, we are planning a redesign on our website (we have been planning it since Fall last year, but got very busy in the Winter), and some new content / design questions have arisen. Right now, we are a "digital media" agency, and we offer video, design, and marketing services. So we do web videos, motion graphics, websites, seo, really a little bit of everything except for 3d modeling. What we are really trying to sell is the combination of these services (we may create a web video and redesign a groups website, then manage their adwords and marketing campaigns) and become our audiences "Go To" digital media agency. We were toying with the idea of giving visitors the option of picking from one target audience or another when they arrived at the home page, and their experience would be customized to best fit the needs of that particular audience from there on out. For example, on our homepage we were thinking of display our overview and value proposition (which would be the same, no matter which target audience group you were a member of), then asking if the visitor was a "Small Business Owner looking for guidance" or a "Marketing Director looking for outsourcing partners", then based on what option they chose, they'd be directed to a corresponding landing page optimized for converting this audience. We were worrying this may drop our domain or page authority for our home page, since these aren't really keywords that we'd normally be trying to rank for. We understand that it is ideal to have 1 "niche" target audience, but we found that we heavily service both audiences. Any help or suggestions are appreciated, thanks!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | RenderPerfect0 -
Any Suggestions for Building an SEO Friendly Auto Dealership Website?
Does anyone have suggestions for re-designing an auto dealership website? Is it possible to build a WordPress website that accepts an inventory feed from VinSolutions? I've been building websites and provided SEO services for years. This is my first time working in the auto industry. The issue I am facing is that our dealership currently have two websites. Both are built on 3rd party platforms and I am seriously considered rebuilding our website from scratch. Our first website was been provided to us by our Hyundai and the website is managed through Cobalt. While I like that the website is directly affiliated with Hyundai, it's very difficult to manage and I have yet to be able to get the techs to grant me access to the FTP server or provide help with installing Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. The owner of our dealership never liked the Cobalt website so they decided to launch a second website that is created and managed by a company called Dealer Specialties. The site is also very difficult to administer and I only see problems later down the road. Is anyone familiar with working with auto dealership websites? I would love to hear your comments on the best way to proceed with our new web presence.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | bryanmull0 -
What are the strategies to follow while doing the weekend SEO Promotion during festivals for any kind of e-commerce website?
I need a complete online marketing plan for the weekend SEO activities. As it relates with festive time so the plan must be covered all the elements of online marketing as well as offline marketing methods.
Conversion Rate Optimization | | srpatnaik0